What is Open Ministry?

In March 2012, the Finland Citizens’ Initiative Act went into effect, giving citizens the right to propose legislation to the Finnish Parliament. To facilitate this, a group of non-profit entrepreneurs launched web platform Open Ministry.

How does it work?

Through the web platform, citizens can propose and vote on new legislature online. The proposed legislation must gather support from 50,000 citizens of voting age within six months to be considered by the parliament.

This approach empowers citizens to have a say in their governance, and more. Science and technology writer David Hill pointed out:

“More than that, Finnish voters can back an initiative online rather than being physically approached by solicitors. Not only does that make it more convenient, but voters can study the initiatives in more detail and research information before they sign up, something that is much harder to do when someone is pushing a clipboard in your face to sign.”

Collaborative Social innovation

The initiative involves collaboration both between the government and the people, as well as among people, with volunteers running the platform and converting proposals into legal form.

“In the meantime, The Open Ministry’s team has been actively working with organizers / campaigners in planning the initiative campaigns for the fall. A group of volunteers from different professional backgrounds evaluate and select proposals that citizens send through the Website. Later, the final selection is passed on to volunteer lawyers who draft the proposals into legal form and terminology.”

CSR opportunity for brands

Several banks and telecom providers have supported the initiative by providing free access to their verification APIs, thus enabling Open Ministry to verify the identity of voters. This partnership was crucial to the Open Ministry being accepted by Finnish policymakers, and provides brands an opportunity to support their consumer’s passions.

“Finland’s program forces representatives to officially take a stand for or against proposals demonstrated to be important to a large portion of the population.

“As such, Open Ministry could lead to not only more immediate direct democracy, but greater accountability for government representatives.”

Joonas Pekkanen, founder of Open Ministry, shares similar views, which have been summarized by Good News Finland:

“Open preparation and decision-making ensure that real causes and opinion leaders will be heard. When the processing phases surrounding decisions and background documents are open to everyone, trust in government officials and representatives will grow.”

Can crowdsourcing lead to social change?

In October 2012, the first citizen-proposed law, a ban on fur farming, entered Parliament with the support 55,000 citizens. Thinkers are watching developments to gauge the success of the initiative.

“The laborious process of putting together a comprehensive piece of legislation — which would require hundreds of pages, legal footnotes and cross-checking with existing laws if it is to succeed in any real way — may simply not be compatible with existing crowdsourcing methods”.

Do we need a new paradigm for lawmaking?

While some question if crowdsourcing can be effective in creating serious legislature, some question whether the current definition of legislature is still relevant in today’s world.

“Despite the promise of crowdsourcing towards more participation, transparency and accountability of the law-making processes several challenges remain. More importantly, broader questions exist on whether these efforts aim to fix a process designed for a previous era or should go beyond what we currently mean by legislation.”

Can Open Ministry work elsewhere?

Thinkers highlight the progress of the initiative to Finland’s open culture and history of collaboration between citizens and government.

“Nordic countries tend to have relatively close societies where people are enthusiastic about pitching into civic life… Tech-driven democracy fans in other countries may not find the environment as conducive to crowdsourced legislation right now, but on the other hand they just got themselves a model to study.”

Though the code for Open Ministry is freely available open source community GitHub, people believe initiative may fall victim to pranksters if replicated elsewhere. Fruzsina Eördögh, writer at The Slate, noted:

“While Open Ministry may be spam- and hacker-proof, there are no signs that it is prankster-proof. Maybe the residents of Finland don’t seem the type to vote on bogus legislation, but the same can’t be said for citizens of the United States. In July of this year, two writers from the satire Internet site Something Awful got more than 62,000 people to like a Facebook page in order to “exile” rapper Pitbull to Alaska.”

Other open governance initiatives

People now call for an open democracy and thinkers believe in a ‘writeable’ society.

Joonas Pekkanen, founder of Open Ministry, observed the shift in people’s expectations:

“Citizens have begun to call for a more open, transparent and participatory western democracy in place of the old rigid system.”

In France, WeSign.it allows people to create petitions online. In Iceland, a Constitutional Council allows citizens to offer direct feedback, re-write and vote on new proposed legislature. In Latvia, Mana Balss (My Voice) enables citizens to propose topics for politicians to debate. In Russia, WikiVote! enables citizens to write the laws and vote on the different versions. In Brazil, e-democracia enables citizens to highlight issues, draft solutions and debate with other citizens. In the US, Petition.WhiteHouse.gov enables citizens to highlight issues to the government. On a corporate front, IBM Many Bills is a “visual tool explorer” that aims to simplify legislation for the public.
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As you can imagine, we can bring the same innovative approach to help you distill insights and foresights from conversations and communities. To start a conversation on how we can help you win with insights and foresights, write to Pascal Beucler at pascal.beucler@mslgroup.com.)